


This Made Up Town Is Much Too Real

by iridescentglow



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, The Academy Is...
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-02
Updated: 2010-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-05 16:10:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescentglow/pseuds/iridescentglow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Sixteen Candles</i> video shoot. With philosophizing about Buffyverse characters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Made Up Town Is Much Too Real

William exhaled hard, blowing the hair out of his face. "I think you're enjoying this . . . ah . . . a little too much," he murmured, eyeing Pete with wary bemusement.

Pete, who was straddling him on top of the car, paused to grind ostentatiously against his hips. "Nahhh . . ." Pete let the word slide out with a smile. He ran his fingers briefly down the centre of William's chest, and then hopped down onto the tarmac.

"Once more!" the director called out distractedly. Pete bounded to resume his place at the edge of the shot. William propped himself up against the warmed metal of the car, and tried to summon underworld menace.

"_And . . . action!_"

As Pete's run turned into a pounce, William felt his heart slam against his chest. The sudden assault of Pete's body was pleasantly crushing; solid weight and roving hands. Bill ran his tongue over the jutting edges of his fake vampire teeth. He felt Pete's breath, hot and moist, gather in the hollow of his neck.

"_Cut!_"

*

The next day in LA was cartoonish in its brightness. Palm trees shivered in a barely-there breeze, their shape appearing garish when set against the too-blue sky. The gaudy procession of perfect, tanned bodies dressed in a winter uniform of bikinis and flip-flops only heightened William's sense of unreality.

Everyone else had crawled back to their hotel rooms when filming had wrapped, but Pete had insisted on staying awake. Bill suspected that he'd begun to over-identify with his vampire role, and was now intent on proving that the sunshine would not, in fact, cause him to burst into flames. They were seated on the steps outside the hotel. It was 8am, and William could feel his own tiredness stretching and fraying into a dreamy, muddled headspace. He was hunched over slightly, his limbs bending and folding like origami. Pete, meanwhile, was sprawled wide across the warming concrete. Bill could sense Pete's perverse pleasure in making people veer crazily around them in order to enter and exit the hotel.

"I fucking hate Los Angeles," Pete spat out, glaring indiscriminately at the passers by. He used the straw in his drink to stab at the ice at the bottom of the plastic cup. He was drinking cranberry juice, lapping up the red drops as they spilled across his lips. They both left the joke unspoken.

"Yeah, me too," William replied vaguely, although he had no real strong feelings on the subject. Being in LA had, for him, always felt like a daydream; fun while it lasted, and it never did . . . last.

"You don't have to keep me company," Pete said after a long silence. His eyes were closed, his face tilted up to the sky. Bill felt his own skin tingle with the heat of sunshine as he watched Pete.

"Maybe I want to," he replied, slightly exasperated.

"_Maybe . . . maybe_," Pete murmured under his breath, but he seemed pleased.

There was another lull in the conversation, during which a hotel guest almost crashed into William. He scrambled out of the way—much to Pete's blithe amusement—and then repositioned himself. His thigh was pressed slightly against Pete's.

"If you were a character in Buffy—no, Buffy_verse_—who would you be?" Pete asked suddenly. He posed the question with complete seriousness; the way someone else might ask about Shakespeare. Bill thought that maybe he liked that best about Pete: his occasional, disarming lack of irony.

"Cordy," William replied quickly—sincerely.

A smile flooded across Pete's face. He looked childishly delighted for a moment, and then his eyebrows quirked mockingly. "Really."

"What?" William's face creased slightly with defensiveness. "She has layers."

"_Su_re." The word came out slurred with sudden cynicism. "Better than being an Angel and spending your whole life wishing to be a Buffy."

William glanced over at Pete. Resentment was pooling in his eyes, and the abrupt deadness of his expression was unnerving.

Bill felt breathless as he rushed out, "You know Buffy and Cordy had something going on."

Pete smiled thinly—it was a darker smile than before, but William felt relieved nonetheless. "Oh tee _pee_," Pete muttered.

William mustered his courage, leaned over and pressed his lips lightly to Pete's cheek. Pete hesitated and then turned his head. He caught William's lips in a quick kiss. Again, there was a pulse of hesitation, before Pete realigned their bodies and kissed William harder. William finally allowed his limbs to loosen, unfolding his legs and arms as Pete pulled him closer.

The brief moment when William forgot they were in public dissolved. He was aware of the shadow of a figure passing by, momentarily blocking the sun; heavy footsteps; the buzz of traffic. Someone yelled something that William didn't quite catch. He blinked as Pete pulled away, yelling back some variation on _fuck off!_

Pete resumed kissing him, with a pulse more passion. His teeth caught on William's lower lip. Bill's heart seemed like it might be squeezing out of his chest. He felt overwhelmed by the sleepy pounding in his brain; the warm lick of sunshine against his exposed skin; Pete's tongue inside his mouth.

Unreality wasn't so bad.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Empire Falls' by Chris Thile.


End file.
